Today I spoke at Kathryn McClatchy’s writing group Unleashing the Next Chapter. I spoke to them about prepping for NaNoWriMo and all the things I do to prepare myself and my household for November. I created a handout of all the different worksheets and calendars that I personally use when I do NaNoWriMo. It was a really pleasant experience. I love this group so much! If you are part of the Facebook group, you can find the replay of the Zoom session here.
Category: What I Love
Here’s something I wrote for my Spiritual Practices class this week:
When my kids were small, we used to have a little altar set up in the front hallway. We put pretty leaves, feathers, flowers, and rocks there that had caught our fancy during walks. As the seasons progressed, so did our altar. Green leaves gave way to yellow, flowers gave way to acorns and whirligig seed pods, but rocks were always a part of the mix.
Once the last child started in all day school, those daily walks came to an end. The altar lay stagnant. Eventually it became a dumping ground for all manner of school related detritus.
This new altar sits in an awkward space between the living room and the back hall. When I was first putting this together, I despaired of finding anything spiritual to put onto this shelf. Everything in my house spoke to fairy tales: dragons, unicorns, fairies, and trolls. But then I started thinking of that other, older tradition we once had. So this altar is a bit of a combination space.
First I covered the four elements: rocks for earth, candles for fire, hummingbird and clarinet for air, and fountain for water. Four of the five senses are also there: perfume bottle and candles for scent, all the pretties for sight, rocks and beaded textures for touch, and clarinet and bird for sound. Plus a little mandarin orange for taste.
Home is the center. Also shown: Some favorite quotes, a cross stitch with our family motto, a painting that makes my mind wander to spiritual thoughts by a friend whose art fills my home, a wooden box from my favorite store in my hometown that is filled with at least a petal from every flower arrangement I received from 1998 til about 2015, a spooky old tree that is reading (and also is an incense burner) the footsteps poem from where my spiritual journey first started, a rock from the lake by my parents’ hometown, other rocks and shells from so many places our travels have taken us, a geode that reminds me that even the hardest rock can be changed by a tiny stream of water, the hummingbird from my best friends “second chance” adventure, a fantasy map where the treasure is in a book (naturally), the clarinet because music has been a part of my life for so long, a green polished stone engraved with the word “Balance” and candles, always candles.
So there I am, me and some of my beliefs all in one little shelf.
On October 14, 2020 at 2pm, I’ll be presenting a writing lesson at Kathryn McClatchy’s Unleashing the Next Chapter Writers’ Group on “NaNoWriMo Prep: Tools We Can All Use!” I’ll have a slideshow explaining what NaNoWriMo is, how to prep both your household and your mind for NaNoWriMo, and also a handout of worksheets that I think help make NaNoWriMo more fun. Hope you can join us! (You do have to be a member of the group to join the Zoom session, but the group is currently free of charge. You just have to answer some questions and agree to help host some coaching sessions if you are a member.)
I spoke today at the Tyler Public Library’s Writing Club Facebook Group on “Writing Dialog.” It went really well! If you are a member of the group, you can see the replay of the live video here: {link}
I will be speaking to the writers at the Tyler Public Writer’s Club Facebook Group on September 30, 2020 at noon. My topic will be “Writing Dialog.” Please join us here if you are able.
This week in Spiritual Practices class we talked about how the Unitarian Universalist faith is a covenantal faith. We are a community that welcomes the strangers because we were all once the stranger.
I grew up Lutheran, for the most part, until I was 15 or so. I don’t remember hearing much about this topic growing up in that church. I do remember experiencing hospitality as a child, though, in the form of many, many people visiting our house over the years, mainly professors and grad students. My parents loved having people over. My dad’s parents were known for their parties and my mother was known for hers. As a child and teen, we were always having people over. As an adult, I’ve struggled a little with this one. When the children were little, my house was always too much of a wreck, though I did host other mom’s weekly for playgroups. My husband is an extrovert and would have had people over every weekend for games and fellowship. With his church, though, it was hard to get people to drive all the way out here (his church is a 40 minute drive from us and his church area expands an hour and a half around outward from the church). Now that the kids are older, we’ve hosted monthly gaming afternoons a have a few other big parties a year.
So what are the qualities of hospitality? At first we think of food, greeting and welcoming people, and listening to others. Hospitality involves an opening of the heart, as well. It’s about cultivating the desire to welcome people and invite them into our lives, a willingness to accept change and accommodate for others.
It’s not one-sided, though, it’s also about letting your community know that you have a need that should be filled. This side of things, I know I am not good at. I never really saw my parents ask for help from others when I was growing up. Helping others, volunteering for others? Yes. Getting help? Not so much. When we moved from Nebraska to Pennsylvania and then on to Texas, we didn’t have people over to help pack. We didn’t ask people to help put furniture on the trucks. As an adult, I still don’t know how to ask others for help when I really need it.
Hospitality is also a social skill. You need to have the ability to know when to reach out and when to leave people to their privacy. Another tough one for me. I watched my mother ask many intrusive questions over the years and I was always so embarrassed. I tend not to be a reacher-outer. I don’t like to bother people. I never thought of this as being the other side of the hospitality coin.
Some questions for reflection:
- When have you felt truly welcomed?
- When have you felt truly included?
- When have you been blessed by hospitality?
This week for our Spiritual Practices class, we were encouraged to make a library of spiritual or sacred texts. I wandered the house for hours, picking up books here and there, and piling them all up next to my bed. Nick and I had a long conversation about what we each thought should go in a spiritual library. His definition leaned towards Christianity, naturally, while mine was wider reaching and included not just spiritual practice manuals, but also covering mythology, fairy tales, and books that weren’t necessarily about religion, but changed my views on it. Then I realized that my library also includes things on my kindle and on my hard drive that I do not have physical versions of, so I made myself a little collage of all those books to put alongside my “new” spiritual library. It was an interesting thought experiment, over all. Now I just have to figure out where to put all these books now that I’ve gathered them and people refilled their spots with other books.
What books do you consider Must Haves in your spiritual library aresenal? Please leave me some comments below. I am always looking for more books.
I was supposed to speak to the Tyler Public Library’s Writer’s Club Facebook Group today about “Selling Your Short Fiction to Anthologies.” Instead, I had a long series of disasters, which lead to me posting the text of my speaking notes, offering writing prompts, and sending links to some good places to submit short stories. It was so frustrating. But no one seemed to mind, so I guess that is something, right?
I will be speaking about “Selling Your Short Work to Anthologies” at the Tyler Public Library Writer’s Club Facebook Group on August 26, 2020 at noon. You can find us at: {link}
Before I knew I was going to be running behind on my BYOB project, I’d already signed up for this writing class/workshop/book discussion group covering Julia Cameron’s The Vein of Gold. I have done a book by Julia Cameron before, many many years ago, called The Artist’s Way, and then several years ago, I also went through her book Blessings. So I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy this when I saw it come up as an option on one of my book groups.
Today’s the first day the group is meeting (and coincidentally also the kids first day back to school). I just discovered that, sadly, I’m already a little bit behind. Apparently a calendar went out over the weekend when I wasn’t paying attention to the group yet, starting daily personal activities last Sunday. Ah well, it looks like it should be pretty easy to catch up, as I actually already have a Morning Pages and Daily Walk habit. I just have to catch up on the very small amount of reading. 🙂 I cannot wait to get started!
